Thursday, January 26, 2017

Considering that the modern etegami movement was born from a rebellion against the restrictions of traditional Japanese arts-- particularly calligraphy-- I was a little surprised when a website called Beyond Calligraphy asked me for an article introducing etegami to calligraphers. Click HERE to see the result.

Sunday, January 8, 2017

The news and variety shows on Japanese TV today are all showing video clips from the Coming of Age Day (Seijin no Hi )
ceremonies that are being held over the long weekend in cities and wards across Japan. Seijin no Hi is a Japanese holiday held annually on the second Monday of January to celebrate young people who have reached, or will reach, the age of majority (20 years old) between April 1st of the old year and March 31st of the new year.

Turning 20 in Japan means that young people may legally
smoke, drink alcohol, and marry without permission from their parents-- and it also means that if they commit crimes, the law will judge them as adults, without the various protections allowed to minors.

Unfortunately, publicly-held Coming of Age ceremonies are not infrequently disrupted and ruined by drunken and disorderly 20-year-olds. Most years I grumble about the current coming-of-age generation and-- fairly or not-- I lament the plummeting manners and sense of "kids these days."

Today, however, I am drawn to how full of beans these rambunctious ceremony-disruptors are. By April, how many of them will be wearing suits and grimly kowtowing to their bosses in personality-stifling work environments? How many of them will be able to hold on to their mischievous inclinations and channel them into socially constructive endeavors?

Today I find myself blessing the newly-20 year-olds, hoping with all my heart that they will survive and thrive and deliver way more than anyone ever expected.

Saturday, January 7, 2017

It's customary in Japan to eat a rice porridge called nanakusa-gayu (literal translation: seven-grass rice porridge) on January 7th, the Festival of Seven Herbs. You can find a chart that lists which seven "grasses" (herbs) go into the porridge at this Wikipedia link, which also explains that "The seventh of the first month has been an important Japanese festival since ancient times. The custom of eating nanakusa-gayu
on this day, to bring longevity and health, developed in Japan from a
similar ancient Chinese custom, intended to ward off evil. Since there
is little green at that time of the year, the young green herbs bring
color to the table and eating them suits the spirit of the New Year."

Yesterday it became clear that my husband had come down with a serious chest cold, so I made a thin version of a smooth green vegetable soup I often make for him. And since it also happened to be the day of the Festival of Seven Herbs, I made a game out of including exactly seven green plants in the soup. Specifically: spinach, shiso leaves, parsley, green onions, celery, broccoli, and iso-nori (a laver-like seaweed that grows on rocks), all blended into a base of chicken broth. It isn't seven-herbs rice porridge, but it's really quite tasty.

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Every year the Japan Postal Service offers postcards pre-printed with specially designed postage stamps and cancellation marks depicting the zodiac animal of the new year. These postcards are meant to be used for the traditional exchange of New Year greetings (nengajou). According to the Chinese zodiac, 2017 is the year of the rooster-- although in
Japan, we prefer to broaden the term to include all chickens.

You may remember a post from two years ago about this very tradition. In fact, it wasn't until that year that I began to pay attention to the design of these stamps And when I started paying attention, I began noticing some delightful things that increased my already high admiration for the Japan Postal Service.

This year, my favorite of the pre-printed stamps depicts a rooster taking a selfie with his smart phone, a happy young chick hopping at his side. The cancellation mark depicts the same rooster in a pose of Zen meditation-- seated in the traditional manner, eyes closed and head slightly bowed-- while the chick plays the role of a temple priest brandishing the wooden stick that is used to remedy lapses in concentration. I was impressed with this clever combination of the new and the old in Japanese life, and I hope it amuses you too.

Here are a few of the chicken-y etegami I made to send out in time for
New Year's Day delivery. I've written often on this blog of the Japanese
custom of sending New Year postcards (nengajou), so rather than
repeating myself here, please check out this post for an overview of the history and tradition of nengajou.

According to the Chinese Zodiac, 2017 is the year of the rooster, but in Japan, we don't limit ourselves to roosters. Our New Year's cards and decorations are clucking and peeping with hens and newborn chicks too. Even chicken eggs, or birds other than chickens.

The photo (below) shows just a few of the big stack of nengajou I found in my mailbox on New Year's morning. Some of the cards depict auspicious subjects other than the zodiac animal of the year: for example, plum blossoms, red-crowned cranes, Otafuku (a plump-cheeked, smiling woman said to bring luck and happiness), and --of course-- Mt. Fuji.

Most of the nengajou are printed on postcards with pre-printed lottery numbers on the addressed side. The post office announces the winning numbers in February. I often have at least one winning number in my pile that qualifies me for the smallest prize of collectable postage stamps.

When I was a child they used to give away television sets and bicycles for the top prizes, but I never knew anyone who was that lucky. The hand-painted nengajou I receive from my etegami friends, which I value the most among all the cards I receive, are not painted on the pre-printed lottery cards (which are not absorbent enough for etegami). But there is a second way to participate in the lottery, and that is by affixing to your own hand-painted card a special New Year postage stamp printed with a lottery number.

A Beginner's Guide to Etegami

what is etegami?

Etegami (e= "picture"; tegami= "letter/message") are simple drawings accompanied by a few apt words. They are usually done on postcards so that they can be easily mailed off to one's friends. Though etegami has few hard-and-fast rules, traditional tools and materials include writing brushes, sumi ink, blocks of water-soluble, mineral-based pigments called gansai, and washi postcards that have varying degrees of "bleed." They often depict some ordinary item from everyday life, especially items that bring a particular season to mind.